Slate say podcasting is now 25% of revenue

January 16, 2018

Slate, the online magazine, says that podcasting now accounts for 25% of its revenue. It is doubling its staff (from five to ten), and today unveil a newly-designed website that promotes podcasts. This year, they plan to fully shift away from Panoply and do their own ad sales.

Damian Radcliffe writes a short history of audio storytelling. Some rather fine pieces of archive audio; and a lovely Steve Jobs quote that podcasting is "the hottest thing going in radio".

How's radio working on smart speakers? A few days ago, podnews painted a bleak picture. However, a major podcast platform contacted us with some actual stats:

Average month-on-month growth for podcasts on smart speakers is 84%, they say (since Aug 1).

Listenership, though, is small - smart speakers accounted for 0.28% in the last thirty days of their biggest clients; the long-tail is even lower.